“One must have chaos within oneself, to give birth to a dancing star.” – Friedrich Nietzsche

The goats are dancing this morning,
With smiles and rectangular eyes.
No one seems to know why.
Least of all me.
The mist, not yet burned off by the sun,
Hangs pale and blue over the earth,
Caressing the tree’s roots,
And, the candy stripped mushrooms.
Fogs in the forest,
Flowing downstream,
Ghost gray in the branches,
Kisses under the falling leaves.
This is not a surprise,
Because,
I was up before sunrise,
Under the faded moon.
Even then, before the stars closed their eyes,
The sky was the color of water,
And, catfish were laughing at their own whispers,
Jumping out of sinkholes,
Swimming in a river of stars.

“We should not pretend to understand the world only by the intellect; we apprehend it just as much by feeling.” – Carl Jung.

Now, abstract expressionism is something else. Here you feel every emotion, use every color, choose to follow whichever you want, expressed but exaggerated, synthesized, abstracted, with no association pictured and free to be associated with any event you choose, or none at all. It doesn’t matter. Just feel, like music. Like perfume. Like the atmosphere of twilight. Like a smile. Like a tear. Like the madness of confusion. Like rebellion. Like the laughter of a clown playing an insane joke.

“The pendulum of the mind oscillates between sense and nonsense, not between right and wrong.” – Carl Jung.

The turn into the twentieth century was frought with new inventions and possibilities. The new world was rushing into the future. Electricity had come of age. The railroads had conquered the land. The telephone had been invented. The camera had been invented. And, here’s the rub, the camera portrayed reality better than the painters. So, what’s an artist to do?

Radio was coming, connecting everyone everywhere. War was coming. The Spanish Flu was coming. Everything was changing. Possibilities. Confusion, conflict, chaos. Can’t keep up? Escape instead. Look the other way. Jump back, into your inner being. Live in your own dream world. A retreat back into innocence, childhood. Back to basics. Simplicity regained in a world going mad. Let us disassociate from reality and connect instead with our internal subconsciousness. Let us swim in our collective unconscious, submerged in our limbic being, our primitive fish form, our basic instincts, fight or flee, survive, live right now. This is the dream, the surreal, the myth, the archetype. Welcome, 100 years later.

Red fish, dead fish,
You will make a tasty dish.
Hatch a fish, catch a fish,
You will be delicious, fish.

A hook, a pole,
A roll of twine,
And, pretty soon,
You will be mine.

Butter sauce with lemon-lime,
Sage, oregano and thyme,
A lovely glass of cold, white wine,
A meal which will deserve a kiss.
I’d like to know, so I don’t miss,
Are there other words which rhyme with fish?

In fairy vales and fantasy
From Tara to Ultima Thule
You may dance with the King
You may dance with the Queen
You may even dance with the Fool
It should be no surprise
When you open your eyes
There’ll be butterfly puddings
And, dragonfly pies
With a gingerbread bird
In a chocolate disguise
And, a jingle bell Jack
You can win as a prize
With an apple red sunrise
In blue cheese cake skies

It is the wind which changes everything
The unsettling wind
Which is filling the swelling, invisible tension of movement
Replacing it with space
Announcing itself in whistles
Speaking in unknown tongues
Using only vowels and moans
With overtones of jazz and chaos
Actions dictated by anarchy
And, directed by insanity
Without regard to the rest of the world
It is the wind which changes everything

As I awake
The purple mesa
Is hovering above the horizon
The orange sands
All aglow
And, struggling
To remember last night’s dream
The appearance of clouds
The taste of rain
The unfolding of flowers
Disguised as rattling thorns
Singing to phantoms of yesterday
And, dust devils
Uncovering silver mirages